Eskort, South Africa’s leading pork producer, has made a multimillion-rand investment in robotic slicing, weighing and packaging machinery for its premium sliced meats range. 

The new equipment has been installed at Eskort’s factory in Heidelberg, Gauteng, and CEO Arnold Prinsloo says it has improved productivity, product presentation and shelf life, as well as reducing energy consumption.

Eskort’s premium sliced range includes gypsy ham, pork pastrami, sandwich ham, cooked ham as well as sliced gammon.  Prinsloo says the line starts with a slicing and check weighing system which measures individual slices and adjusts parameters such as thickness and cutting speed to ensure accurate portions. “This maximises the use of raw materials and ensures consistent product quality,” he says.

Slices of meat are assembled into package quantities and conveyorised to a “pick and place” robot that can optimise placement on the packaging line to improve presentation and reduce waste.

“This can all be done without any physical handling of the product by factory staff. The system uses advanced servo drives and innovative technologies such as vacuum grippers to precisely pick and place products in trays.

“The whole system is designed to meet stringent food hygiene requirements, and the robots and grippers are designed for gentle product manipulation, which is crucial for delicate items like sliced foods.”

The new sliced meat line has an expected lifespan of 10 years. It is just the latest investment at Eskort’s Heidelberg factory, where a 10,000 m² extension that increased production capacity by 50% was launched in February 2024.

The enlarged factory has the largest continuous box freezer in Africa, capable of freezing 120,000 kg of products to minus 18°C every 24 hours. Chilled and frozen warehouses have multi-level picking mezzanine floor systems, the first of their kind in the food industry in South Africa.

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